SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PayPal
today announced the $100,000 grand-prize winner of its Battle
Hack Series, a global hackathon competition. The two-day Battle Hack
World Finals took place at the PayPal Headquarters in San Jose and
hosted 10 teams of developers from across the globe. Each team had to
win a regional PayPal Battle Hack competition to qualify for the finale.
At the event, competitors were tasked with building an application that
incorporated the PayPal API and benefited the community in some way.

The $100,000 grand prize was awarded to the team from Moscow who created
an app called Donate Now. Second place went to team Tel Aviv (Dañny
Leshém, Yaniv Ben Zaken, Maya Marom and Yoav Amit) for RunPal, an app
that connects users with other runners around the world to encourage
them to get running. And, third place went to team Miami (Alexander
Sjögren, Jose Pimienta and Osniel Gonzalez) for LoanPal, a peer-to-peer
lending service.

Donate Now uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology and PayPal to
allow anyone to instantly donate to a cause in the moment without
filling in lengthy forms right from their mobile devices, whenever and
wherever they see an opportunity for giving in their daily lives. The
team consisted of four members: Sergey Pronin, Alexander Balabna, Bayram
Annakov, and Oksana Tretiakova.

“We’re thrilled to share that the awesome team from Moscow has won
$100,000 for its innovative Donate Now app,” said John Lunn, Global
Director of PayPal’s Developer Network. “We truly believe that
developers can help change the world. The goal of our Battle Hack
program is to find the best and brightest developers across the globe
that could do just that. The response from our inaugural Battle Hack
competition has been overwhelming, with several cities selling out and
bringing talented hackers.”

The PayPal Battle Hack Series launched in May 2013 and hosted regional
hackathons in 10 cities worldwide. Prior to the finale event in San
Jose, California, PayPal hosted regional competitions in Berlin,
New
York City, Tel
Aviv, Seattle,
Miami,
Moscow,
Austin,
London,
Washington,
D.C., and Barcelona.
PayPal awarded first place to one team in each regional Battle Hack
city. Each winning team then traveled (all flight and hotel expenses
paid) to San Jose to compete in PayPal’s Battle Hack World Finals.
Throughout the Battle Hack Series each team was judged based the quality
of the idea, execution and innovation, and the overall user experience
of the app.

“People love helping others in need, but there are so many obstacles
that can make it hard to donate,” said the winners of both Battle Hack
Moscow and the World Finals. “The commitment to great developer tools
and the attention we received from PayPal’s evangelists and mentors
throughout the competition gave us a unique opportunity to showcase what
we do every day—build terrific applications to solve pressing problems.”

The 24-hour competition created 10 new apps, ranging from a seasonal
payroll system and real-time peer loans for the under-banked, to ways
for food trucks to quickly expand service locations with pledges from
customers. The PayPal Battle Hack World Finals judges included: John
Lunn; David Marcus, President of PayPal; Isaac Saldana, President of
SendGrid; Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio; Aunkur Arya, Braintree General
Manager of Mobile; and Sarah Austin, Stremor Chief Product Officer.

With more than 137 million active users in 193 markets and 26
currencies, PayPal continues to be the only digital payments company
that can scale as a developer’s business grows. PayPal was the first
payments company to open up its APIs for developers in 2009. Since then,
hundreds of thousands of developers have used its APIs and developer
tools. PayPal released new REST APIs, mobile SDKs and a developer
website earlier this year to make it even easier and faster for
developers to take payments.

About PayPal

PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service
allows people to send payments without sharing financial information,
with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts
(where available), credit and debit cards in various markets. PayPal is
an eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) company and enables global e-commerce with over
132 million active accounts in 193 markets and 25 currencies around the
world. PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, California and its
international headquarters is located in Singapore. More information
about the company can be found at https://www.paypal.com.